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Research & Reviews : Journal of Food Science & Technology

Food Texture Descriptors: A Compilation of the most Important Terms used in Sensory Analyses

  1. César Vinicius Toniciolli Rigueto
  2. Jaqueline da Silva Rumão
  3. Raquel Aparecida Loss
  4. Christian Oliveira Reinehr
  5. Luciane Maria Colla

Abstract

The texture is essential in the quality and acceptance of food, being classified into three distinct groups: mechanical, geometrical, and compositional. The so-called “lexicons” are standardized vocabularies with the definitions and references for each attribute which aid the application of descriptive sensory analysis. The objective of this study was to raise typical texture descriptors from different types of food, relating them to the methodologies and technological processes used, besides the sensory perception of the judges. The literature points to several textural terms commonly related to sensory analysis of foods, such as primordial for meat (chewiness and hardness), nuggets (crispness and adhesion), fresh and fleshy fruits (pulp firmness), cheeses (springiness, friability, deformability, adhesiveness, and cohesion), yogurts (gelatinousne, smoothness, and mouth-coating) bakery products (springiness, compressibility, and powderiness), extruded snacks (hardness, friability, adhesiveness, chewiness, and fracturing) and emulsions (fragility, creaminess, oiliness, and sandiness). We hope that this study can contribute for use in descriptive sensory methods of texture, optimizing the cost and time required to perform these techniques.

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